Stupid Microsoft Interface
Stupid Microsoft Interface of the Day: Why does Outlook, when I add a new event to the calendar, default to reminding me 18 hours before the event? Who wants to be reminded 18 hours before a meeting? I actually just checked the settings, and in there it says that the default should be 15 minutes, but in actuality it’s 18 hours. Broken.
And a bonus stupid interface design, not from Microsoft: There’s a security door I go through as a shortcut to my desk in the morning. I have a proximity card to unlock the door. In theory, all I have to do is bring the card nearby the sensor, and the door unlocks. I’ve used other such systems (my college had one) that worked fine. But this one’s really b0rked.
To start with, waving the card near the sensor isn’t good enough. You have to press the card to the sensor and move it back and forth, and even then it has about a 50% hit rate. If your sensor requires physical contact, why not use a swipe card or a key (god forbid), both of which would be more reliable than this thing?
Compounding the problem is the fact that the door doesn’t give any obvious signal when it has recognized a key. If it’s first thing in the morning, and there’s nobody around, and the office is very very quiet, you might be able to hear the lock unlock, but with any background noise it’s inaudible. Would it have killed them to put in a beep, or a flashing light, when the door unlocks? As it is, you just have to keep trying–rub card against sensor, try door, repeat–until you get through.
Geek | Comment (0)Positive Interaction with the Government
Mark your calendars, folks. I just had a positive interaction with the government. And not just the government–the tax people!
I got a letter the other day, stating that I owed $500 in taxes more than I had calculated in my forms. I was pretty sure that was wrong–the partial year NYC resident forms were confusing, but there a mistake that big would have been obvious–but the letter didn’t explain how they arrived at the number, so I had to call them.
I tried calling yesterday, and discovered much to my annoyance that they close at 4:25 in the afternoon. Government workers must have one hell of a union. But when I called today, after a short hold time, I talked to a very helpful woman. She looked at my tax forms and quickly discovered the problem: I had entered the amount of NYC tax I owed under the “full year resident” line, not the “partial year resident” line. So they calculated the amount of tax I owed assuming I had lived in NYC all year, and earned my income from both jobs I held last year there. Once she realized the mistake, the extra $500 went away. What’s more, she went through my part-year NYC resident form, found a mistake (she didn’t specify what it was), and discovered that I was actually owed an additional $90 refund!
So those government tax people aren’t all scum, I guess.
Work | Comment (0)Presentation Went Okay
Well, the senior planner who was with me on the presentation liked it. I asked him for feedback, and he couldn’t think of anything I’d done wrong, although he did have one tip for something to add when presenting briefs in the future. And he sent a letter to my real boss (the head of the department) praising my presentation! I just got an e-mail from her, quoting his message and adding some words of praise of her own!
So I guess I did good.
Work | Comment (0)First Brief Presentation
I just presented a creative brief to the client for the first time. This is exciting: as I’ve said here, the creative brief is one of the big things an account planner does, and presenting it to the client is a huge step.
I don’t know how well I did, really; I was nervous, but they seemed to like it. Only a couple of minor changes. I’m going to ask the senior planner who was in on the call what he thought of my presentation when he gets in to the office.
Work | Comment (0)Star Wars Episode III
(Warning: exceedingly minor spoilers for “Revenge of the Sith” in this
post.)
You know what’s cool? Getting paid to see the new Star Wars movie. We
had a department “field trip” to go see it Friday morning. About 40 of
us. In addition to it being on company time, the company also paid for
our tickets.
Longtime readers of this blog may remember (assuming I actually blogged about it) that I went to see the digitally-projected version of Episode
II and was not impressed. You could see anti-aliasing effects. (For
the non-techies: a trick computer displays do to make it seem like they
have a higher resolution than they really have.) Well, either the
technology has improved or the equipment at the Zigfield in New York is
better, because I saw the digitally-projected version of this one, and
it looked great. No anti-aliasing, and none of the damage that film
prints pick up quickly. My opinion on digital projection is definitely
more positive as a result.
Oh, the movie itself? It was awesome. Lots of cool action sequences, and lots of clever manipulation by Palpatine. The new trilogy is his
story, really-the events of all three movies were caused by him in order
to ensure his rise to power.
The movie also had a very smooth transition to the events of the original “Star Wars”, both in the large-scale events and in the little
details (check out Bail Organa’s ship for an example of the latter).
And they deftly avoided a couple of plot holes that I had been nervous
about.
I’m not saying the movie was perfect: my main complaint was that
Annakin’s move to the Dark Side, when it came, was too fast. He called
Palpatine “Master” too soon, and shouldn’t have been willing to accept
the “Sith will rule the galaxy” line from someone who, earlier in the
same scene, had been talking about preserving the Republic. Oh, and one
line stuck out: Obi-Wan Kenobi angrily saying to Annakin, “Only the Sith
deal in absolutes.” Um, Obi-Wan? That’s an absolute. I’m just
sayin’.
But a very good movie. And boy, George Lucas sure loves him the
parallel scenes, doesn’t he? About the last half hour of the movie
consists of pairs of parallel scenes.
Agency Going Down
Do you remember, back when I was hunting for ad jobs, I was offered two internships? Well, the agency I turned down is about to shut down entirely. Apparently they lost their biggest client and haven’t been able to recover from it.
Work | Comment (0)